A Proposal For A New Way To Distribute Tournament Prizes

[BigAlK]

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To the victors go the spoils.

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That's the case now. I don't see how this would change that. However I re-read David's proposal and realized I didn't pick up on this.

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The point is that at the present time the prize structure is silly. At the Bellagio main event, there was more to be gained from moving from 101 to 100 than from eleventh to tenth.

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Although he doesn't explicitly say so I'm guessing that they paid 100 places so you'd leave with nothing if you went out in 101st place and win something in excess of your buy-in for 100th. The point of his proposal seems mainly to remove making the money if you're short stacked as a reasonable goal since you'll get very little money (the $500 in your stack rather than the 10-20K you'd get now).

This would make tournaments "more like regular poker." Of course making every tournament winner take all would do the same. Or maybe allowing anyone to drop out and cash in their chips any time they decided they'd had enough. If the goal is to make tournament play more like a ring game then it's a great idea that could be taken even farther.

Personally I like the differences between tournaments and ring game play. Obviously not everyone does.

[LearnedfromTV]

I like it.

I wouldn't want it to totally replace the current method, but I like it as an alternative. It would drastically reduce variance, play more like a cash game, and reward people who play well in the (lower-variance, deeper-stacked) early and middle stages to build a stack.

There would still be a bubble, certainly not as dramatic, but:

Say it's a 1000 player tournament, and a guy has 0.3% of the chips with 101 left. If the two buckets are 50/50, his prize if he makes it to #100 would be 0.15% of the prize pool, which is 1.5x his buyin (plus a small chance at the final table). This guy still feels the bubble. The only difference is, a 50/50 shot at doubling up is neutral EV for him, whereas it often wouldn't be in a normal payout structure. But people wanting to get their money back could still be exploited.

[BigAlK]

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Because shorter stacks don't have to sacrifice EV if they play to win.

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I just figured that out. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

I think this situation applies to other kinds of tournaments too. For example if you're Tiger Woods on the 18th hole of Friday's round should you play differently if your current score is exactly what you think it will take to make the cut? Assume you can see two good ways to play the hole. One is almost always going to result in a par. The other gives you a good chance at making a birdie or possibly an eagle, but some chance of a bogey instead (a higher variance play).

Should your decision be different if you're a rookie still looking for your first cash?

I would guess that Tiger is more likely to make the higher variance play (he's playing to win) while the rookie will be more focused on making the cut (sneaking into the money).

The more I think about your proposal the more I see it as akin to the alternative scoring system the PGA uses (or used to, not sure the current status) at one of the tournaments where you got +2 points for a birdie and -1 for a bogey which encouraged more aggressive play. It would change the dynamics of tournament play for tournaments that used it. Just like satellite situations can call for different strategy than comparable spots in a regular tournament. Then the spoils would go to those who understood the differences and properly adapted. I'm not sure if it is better or worse, just different.

[curtains]

I have to admit I think it's a terrible idea. People like tournaments and they are immensely popular. Why would one want to drastically change the payout structure at a time like this?

[BigAlK]

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The point of his proposal seems mainly to remove making the money if you're short stacked as a reasonable goal since you'll get very little money (the $500 in your stack rather than the 10-20K you'd get now).

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Too late to edit, but I realize my numbers are all [censored] up here. 45K for making the money currently and some unknown amount under David's proposal (50% of the face value of your chips if the starting stack equals the buy-in).

[Cornell Fiji]

I agree with all of what has been said.

As a poker player, this seems like a simple $EV decision

I feel like I am pretty good at beating tournaments with the current payout structure. One of my greatest sources of value is derived from my ability to exploit people on the bubble; a time that many players are (often incorrectly) trying to reduce variance by passing up many cEV edges.

The proposed structure would play more like a cash game. For that reason, more people will be playing closer to perfect strategy and I will have less opportunities to exploit them. The new structure would create its unique and interesting bubble considerations such as people wanting to lock up 'a win' around the cut off times, the subsequent loose play after the pay outs are dispersed, amongst other things. However, I feel like a failure to adapt to the new considerations would be closer to optimal play than such a failure is on the bubble of the current style of tournaments.

Would I like to play in a tournament that you described? Sure. It sounds like a good time. Would I want the new payout structure replace the current one? No. It would make the lives of tournament specialists a lot harder

[jedi]

David,

Interesting idea. The one way to implement it is to become a tournament director yourself and promote this because you sure as hell know that no existing TD will implement this.

Good luck.

[Sherman]

FWIW, I don't think David's idea is a bad idea per se.

Imagine if David's proposed prize distribution had always been the way tournament prizes were distributed. I assume we would all be used to this struture.

Imagine then that someone proposes that we change the structure from one we are all used to, the the one we have presently (if that makes any sense).

I'm sure many people would be complaining that changing the structure is a bad idea. In other words, most of us (myself included) calling this is a bad idea are biased by what we like presently. If we had always been using David's idea, we would be arguing for exactly the opposite.

Using David's idea, I can imagine that appropriate tournament strategy might change. In all likelihood, poor players will still not play appropriately. The point is, that if we were all used to David's structure, we would have found ways to exploit our opponents there as well. And we would now be complaining that this "new" structure would cost us our edge if we changed it.

As a final word, would appropriate strategy be to play tighter at the bubble in David's structure? I think it would not be optimal. If at each payout level, the total monies paid is to be distributed by stack sizes of the remaining players, it seems that it would be more appropriate to gobble up as many chips as possible before the payouts.

Every chip at that level is worth more $. Barely making the payouts would be relatively worthless. It would be worth even less than making barely making the payouts in the old structure. Especially compared to making the payouts with an enormous stack of chips.

[flyingmoose]

I think it's terrible. Making a less intuitive system would reduce the popularity of tournaments, especially with regard to TV viewers. Start explaining this system to the general public and they probably lose interest.

Keep in mind a lot of people who watch poker still have no idea why chips are valuable. They stick to phrases such as "You can't go all-in on a draw" which any regular tournament player would find patently absurd. Consequently, if you want to sell the sport you can't focus on pleasing its experts, you have to maintain a framework simple enough that everyone can get interested and excited about it.

[A_PLUS]

I really like the concept. I'm sure there are "better" ways to accomplish these goals, but this gets us close enough, without making insanely complicated prize structures.

The thing I like about it, is that I suspect that it would decrease the variance of MTT play. In a nut shell, your could get closer to your actual $EV in MUCH fewer tournaments, and make CEV and $EV closer throughout an event.